Manuel Alvarez Bravo Biography

Born February 4, 1902, in Mexico City, Mexico; died of natural causes,
October 19, 2002, in Mexico City, Mexico. Photographer. Manuel Alvarez
Bravo's photographs represented the height of Mexican photography
during the 1930s and '40s. One of the leading surrealist artists on
the North American continent, his work was also praised for its realism
because of its intense focus on the everyday lives of Mexico's
diverse population.

The son of a high school teacher, Alvarez Bravo left school by the age of
13 and began work in a government office. For a short time, he studied
music and painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts. Working as a
clerk to support himself, Alvarez Bravo continued to show an interest in
art. He learned basic photography from a family friend who had given him a
camera. Eventually he bought his own camera and was lucky enough to
receive training from some of Europe's finest photographers.

Alvarez Bravo learned European photographic techniques from Hugo Brehme,
whom Alvarez Bravo met when he was 21. Brehme also introduced Alvarez
Bravo to Wilhelm Kahlo, who, like Brehme, was another German–born
photographer making his home in Mexico. Kahlo was the father of the famous
painter Frida Kahlo who—along with muralist Diego
Rivera—strongly influenced Mexican art during the early
post–Revolutionary years.

Alvarez Bravo continued to meet other photographers who had a great
influence on him. In particular, the Italian photographer Tina Modotti
bolstered Alvarez Bravo's career. As principal photographer for
Mexican Folkways,
she helped get his work published in the magazine.
Mexican Folkways
focused on Mexican popular art and customs as well as showcasing the
muralists of the time. When Modotti was deported from Mexico in 1930 for
her political beliefs, Alvarez Bravo took over her duties.

Alvarez Bravo began exhibiting his works in the mid–1920s. In 1926,
he won an award for regional photography at an exhibition. An introduction
to American photographer Edward Weston (who was Modotti's beau at
the time), led to an exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum with Weston, along
with Imogen Cunningham and Dorothea Lange. His first one–man
exhibition came in 1932 in Mexico City. Soon afterward he met the American
photographer Paul Strand and French portraitist Henri
Cartier–Bresson. Alvarez Bravo exhibited with
Cartier–Bresson in 1934 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City.
In 1935, the two exhibited again, along with Walker Evans, in New York.

In the 1930s, Alvarez Bravo began a teaching career that lasted for more
than 30 years. He taught at various schools including the San Carlos
Academy, the Center of Cinematographic Studies of the National
Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Central School of Art. His
unusual teaching style combined with his anonymity caused many students to
eschew his classes. When most students were wanting to study filmmaking,
Alvarez Bravo was taking them out to the countryside, having them set up
cameras, and then waiting for something to happen.

Alvarez Bravo's work grew from many influences. As a child growing
up during the Mexican revolution, he encountered death almost daily.
Mexico had lost more than a million people in the conflict, and many
bodies lay decomposing in the countryside where he played. The influence
of his international contemporaries led to the creation of photographs
that were filled with symbolism. His work was also guided by his
association with Mexico's left–wing intellectual and
political community.

Early in his career Alvarez Bravo sought out the intimate details of daily
life in Mexico City. Photographs like
The Crouched Ones,
which shows workers sitting at a counter with their backs to the camera,
is extraordinary because the lighting and composition make them appear
decapitated as well as chained to their chairs.

As he matured, Alvarez Bravo became interested in creating meaning,
however ambivalent, and began setting up scenes to be photographed. One of
his most famous photographs made in this fashion is
The Good Reputation Sleeping.
The photograph was commissioned by French surrealist André Breton
for the cover of his catalogue of the surrealist exhibition in Mexico
City. In the photograph, a woman lies nude on a sidewalk, bandages are
wrapped about her, and cacti are placed around her body.

In the 1940s, Alvarez Bravo began to focus on the Mexican landscape using
wide–angle cameras. Praised from the beginning for his ability to
link the past and the present in his work, these later photographs
exemplified this strength in his work. His 1957 print
Kiln Two
shows two brick–making ovens with smoke pouring out their pointed
tops. The photo harks back to Mexico's ancient history by
referencing Mayan temples while also representing the effect of
industrialization on the country.

Late in his life Alvarez Bravo found it hard to travel. He continued to
photograph, but he worked primarily in his studio or his backyard
photographing nudes as well as objects that were sent to him from
colleagues, friends, and admirers. Although Alvarez Bravo enjoyed his work
and did not complain, Jonathan Kandell of the
New York Times
reported that Alvarez Bravo said, "But the countryside, the daily
life of the street is so much richer than doing nudes."

Despite having exhibited in the United States with some of its top
photographers during the '20s and '30s, Alvarez Bravo
eventually became unknown to many. In 1971, he was reintroduced to the
United States and a wider audience when the Norton Simon Museum (at that
time called the Pasadena Art Museum) launched a retrospective. The
retrospective eventually traveled to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Alvarez Bravo was honored again more than 30 years later on his 100th
birthday with exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum as well as other
American museums

Alvarez Bravo married Lola Martinez de Anda in 1925, and divorced her in
1934. He then married and later divorced Doris Heyden. His widow is
Colette Urbajtel whom he married in 1962. Alvarez Bravo died on October
19, 2002, at the age of 100. He is survived by his wife and five children.
Alvarez Bravo was a leader in Mexico's artistic renaissance; his
work focused on specifically Mexican subjects. Weston Naef, a curator for
the J. Paul Getty Museum told the
New York Times,
"For Alvarez Bravo almost all of his greatest pictures were made
within 100 miles of his home.… [He was] completely committed to a
body of work that had its grounding in the soil from which he
came."